Alaskan Bush People Recap: Shots in the Dark

Alaskan Bush People Night Vision Helmet

On Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People episode “Shots in the Dark” (June 17), the wolfpack is on high alert after mysterious shots were fired causing property damage on the shores of Browntown. The strength of the family is tested as the Browns struggle to finish a salvage job shorthanded.

Go Here For All Of Your AWESOME And EXXXTREME Alaskan Bush People Needs!

It’s spring in Brownton Abbey, and there’s a lot of work to do. For Matt, this means it’s time for another half-baked, half-assedly executed and totally unnecessary project. Matt builds a raft out of an air mattress, and he uses a modified weed whacker with a propeller on it for the raft’s engine. Since most weed whackers aren’t built to spin anything heavier than a spool of that nylon string, Matt burns out the engine. And if he hadn’t burned out the engine, how long would it have been before Matt weed-whacked the mattress and deflated it?

We return to the Hoonah dump, where Noah is browsing the aisles for old discarded things that can be turned into new things that don’t work. “It’s important to have an open mind whenever you come to the dump,” he says. Indeed, I always walk through dumps with a mindset of wondrous possibilities and not deep, crushing despair. Noah spies a few items of interest, including a junked security camera that he hopes to turn into night vision goggles. Not to spoil anything, but I have a hunch that some night vision goggles might come in handy later in this episode. But where’s the ghost of Kenny during all of this? Even he has better things to do.

Springtime means that Hoonah-area folks are desperate to have their useless crap hauled from one side of the island to the other. Matt accepts a job from one such desperate soul to transport some boat fenders — large bumpers that prevent damage from boats running into the dock — which Billy could’ve used on multiple occasions. Never forget:

AlaskanBushPeopleOpal

Elsewhere in Hoonah, Billy’s buddy and apologist Trapper Trout is having his boat dry docked to make repairs. Bam and Gabe are there to help him out, because helping people out is the Bush Way and the Browns have to pay Trapper back for all the nice things he was forced to say on TV about Billy. We’ve seen it before, but Trapper’s boat is a real POS. After pressure-spraying the outer hull, they find a few small and not-so-small holes in it. They fill the small holes with waterproof putty, and the bigger holes get covered with plates of scrap metal. “I can’t count the number of times in the past that my family has needed help like this, and somebody has swooped in and saved the day,” Gabe says. Yeah, funny how that works, isn’t it?

Billy catches wind of Matt’s boat fender job, and he has his concerns. “It’s never how it seems,” Billy tells Bam. It’s funny how the combination of Billy Brown Syndrome and torn ACL have turned Billy into a wise old soothsayer. Billy’s next scamming job could be as a Bush Psychic Medium.

Matt should be preparing the Integrity and its crew for the hauling job, but he chooses instead to dick around with his mattress raft. He’s giving up the mechanical propulsion idea in favor of a sail to “harness the solar wind.” Solar wind? Sure, dude. Whatever. I’m done arguing with you. His sail is made of a space blanket, which is basically a sheet of mylar plastic, the same stuff they use in those balloons and that they used to wrap porno mags in, back when people read such things for, you know, the articles. Matt’s calling this vessel the Queen of Hearts, because he built it out of a queen-size mattress and he put a lot of heart into it. Ah, I see what you did there, Matt! Very clever! “Basically I see myself as an explorer and as an astronaut,” Matt says, insulting both explorers and astronauts. After some fumbling around, Matt catches enough wind in the sail to get his raft to float out into the bay. “This is just a perfect example of Matt’s madness kind of turning into mad genius,” Gabe says. Gabe doesn’t have much faith in Matt’s seamanship or the seaworthiness of his craft, so he yells to Matt to bring it back in. “OK, I guess it’s time to go home. … I don’t really know how you do that,” Matt says. And Matt was never seen again.

That night, the future of the Brown family will be changed forever when a gunshot rings out in the distance. Wait. Haven’t we seen this before? Yes! A gun-toting boogeyman way back in Season 1 ran the Browns out of Chitina, or so the story goes. “When you hear a gunshot in the night, there’s no doubt it’s the number one priority is keeping everybody safe,” Billy says right after telling all of his boys to go out and investigate. After a lot of Zero Dark Thirty Bush SEAL Team Six drama, they call off the search.

In the morning, Bear puts on his Nikes, grabs his rifle, and goes running off into the woods sniffing for clues. “When you’re dealing with people, they’re the most unpredictable animal of all,” Bear says. Meh. Everything I’ve seen from these people has been very predictable.

Bam and Bear take the skiff to inspect the Integrity for damage. “I really hope it was just somebody goofing off or being an idiot or whatever,” Bam says. So have we ruled out Matt as the culprit? After some investigating, they find that there’s a hole in the mooring buoy, the basketball-sized orange floaty thing that makes it possible for them to locate the permanent anchor. They take the buoy to show Billy. “It looks pretty obvious it’s a high-powered rifle,” Billy says, sticking his finger into one of the holes. Oh, yes, it’s OBVIOUS that hole is from a gunshot. Let’s not mention how that buoy looked severely damaged from the sun and the sea and was probably very brittle. And what about that other hole just inches away from the bullet hole? What’s that from, eh? The guy who just minutes ago said “It’s never how it seems” is now quick to jump to the silliest conclusion. I give the show’s producers credit for continuing to amaze me with bullshit.

Birdy, Rainy, Gabe and Matt take off for the boat fender job, and they spend the journey talking trash about Bam. Matt says that it’s nice not having Bam along for this job and that he intentionally excluded him from it. I hope they all get shipwrecked and marooned for failure to respect the danger. They arrive at the spot where the boat fenders are “stored,” and it’s just like someone abandoned these three massive things in the woods years ago. Much like the Suzuki Samurai from earlier this season, the Browns are just hauling away someone’s garbage. Nobody needs these boat fenders, especially not by “the end of tomorrow.” The entire process of rolling these things into the water is kinda dull, except for when Birdy and Rainy start throwing elbows into each other. “You’re not sumo wrasslers! Stop it!” Bam Gabe scolds them. I thought of a Birdy vs. Rainy sumo Photoshop that would probably be inappropriate, so just use your imagination on that one.

Billy does his weekly welfare check on Noah, whose latest creation is a night vision helmet. “Is it supposed to look like an alien head?” Billy asks. Noah has transformed a hard hat, a welding helmet, a security camera, a security camera monitor and a piece of a yoga mat into this … thing. Noah says the helmet allows him to see about 40 feet ahead in the dark. Does that 40 feet include the length of the power cord?

Alaskan Bush People Noah Night Vision Helmet

“With this thing, you’re the predator,” Noah says. Alien or Predator? You decide.

AVP vs ABP

Of course, this thing is not true night vision. The helmet doesn’t amplify small amounts of light. It produces its own light with LEDs, which isn’t at all stealthy and totally defeats the purpose. This is why SEAL Team Six operators don’t wear mining helmets. When you break it down, Noah essentially has created a heavy, cumbersome, less effective, less mobile and less efficient flashlight. Bully for him.

Back at the boat fender job site, the third fender is lodged pretty deep into the trees. Matt’s going to tie it up to the Integrity to yank that sucker like pulling one of his mom’s teeth. But the tide is rolling away Otis Redding-style, and the shallow water warning goes off on the boat. URGENCY! They have to hurry before they run aground and wreck the Integrity and Brownton Abbey will be ruined and the future of the wolfpack will be changed forever! But nothing happens. Stuff is fine. The boat fenders are delivered to Gregarious Greg at the dock, and everyone goes on their merry way.

Poor Bam. He’s all by his lonesome, forced to contemplate his upcoming month of ankle-monitoring, and resigning himself to build a swing out of pallets and “spare boards” he pulled off of his house. This is the saddest moment of the series, on a number of levels. “When I signed that admission of guilt, it was heartbreaking. Because I’m admitting that I’m a thief, I’m admitting that I didn’t live in Alaska and I’m admitting that I was guilty, and none of it was true,” Bam tells us. Ugh. It’s hard to like Bam when he talks this bulljive. Let’s remember that Billy and Bam’s plea deal and admission of guilt was REJECTED by the court. [Correction: The plea deal from fall 2015 that would have avoided jail time was rejected. The guilty plea in January 2016 was accepted.] This stuff should have been edited out, but the producers are sticking with the heroic throwing-themselves-on-a-grenade-to-protect-the-family angle.

On the journey home, Rainy, Matt, Birdy and Gabe take back all the mean things they said about Bam. They realize the job could’ve been a lot smoother if they had Bam with them, and Matt actually has to show some responsibility when Bam’s not there to take the pressure off of him. “We take Bam for granted, I guess,” Birdy says. “Matt can only really be Matt when Bam is on the job.” Now I am even more pissed off at Bam for allowing Matt to be Matt.

There’s a little more time to kill in this episode, so let’s see what else is going on. …  Not content with one stupid invention per episode, Noah is rigging up an alarm system on the Integrity using motion sensing lights and a record player that spins opera tunes when the sensor is activated. “The main reason that I wanted it to be music to be played is that I could expose more people to opera,” he says. So when intruders come to ransack the Integrity, at least they’ll be a little more cultured in the process. “Opera is kind of like moss. It grows on you,” Noah says. If you have moss growing on you, consult a physician. There will be plenty of false alarms, of course, but it won’t matter since no one at Brownton Abbey will be able to hear this thing.

And there’s a little more time to kill. … Sad and bored Bam patches up the mooring buoy with a piece cut from a bicycle tire. I’m no ballistics expert, but there are way more holes in that thing than could be caused by a single gunshot. “We’ll never know who came out here or why they did what they did,” Bam says. True, because whoever came out here and did what they did didn’t come out here to didn’t do what they didn’t do. Contemplate that while spending 30 days in Juneau.

Um… OK… What else? … Bear built a zipline to get from his treehouse to his parents’ porch. But this isn’t just your standard, rational, compos mentis one-way zipline. It is EXXXTREME! “My superior EXXXTREMEness allows me to actually be able to pull myself up the zipline, even carrying stuff,” Bear says. “It’s a good workout. But I just like to be more EXXXTREME, so going up a zipline backwards adds EXXXTREME points.” I think Bear has accumulated enough EXXXTREME points to earn himself an additional X in EXXXTREME. Introducing … EXXXXTREME!

Really? This show’s not over yet? Couldn’t they have just shortened this episode to 40 minutes or something? Well, here goes. … Sad Bam is busy cleaning his pistol when Matt comes over to disturb the peace. Matt basically tells Bam that he actually missed him on the boat fender job, and blah blah blah they’ll all miss him when he’s doing hard time in a house somewhere in Juneau. And finally, we’re done here.

This was actually one of the more tolerable episodes I can remember. We got a bunch of stupid, unnecessary, impractical and non-functioning creations by Matt and Noah. Bear said EXXXXTREME a lot. I could relate to Bam’s existential crisis as a symptom of the human condition. There was barely any Ami, and Billy was mostly covered up in an Alien/Predator helmet. I found this episode transcendently bad and absurdly funny, like watching a 7th grade production of Waiting for Godot.

Coming next week: JUDGEMENT DAY!

[DIGRESSION! Sorry this recap is a little later than usual. I had a busy weekend with the family, and I’ve had a little case of Ryan Berenz Syndrome. I’m getting lazier than Billy, or the people behind the fake Twitter accounts that post nice things about the Browns:

But what do my thoughts matter, anyway? I’m just a “hater,” and haters gonna say it’s fake.

As always, much love to you guys for checking out these recaps.]

64 Comments

  1. Why aren’t the “kids” doing anything but playing in “Browntown”?
    It seems like all they do is collect and make junk. Did Gabe get his rotten house? Did Bam and Billy serve time or have snkle
    bracelets? What do they eat? I never see anyone cooking or getting food from any sorces?
    They all seem to do stupid stuff 14/7 and what do they have?? Nine people that can’t be torn away from each other?? Very strange concept for a T.V. show

  2. Ryan, I wound up on one of your other ABP stories through a Brown family Google search and am very impressed. You have an amazing way of writing that is clever and funny. I’m sure to come back to this site just to read your take on (even bad) shows. I’m curious though, do you write for any other paper or online publications?

  3. Ryan/David, I came across the following written by Bam in 2009. Bam asking people to buy Billy’s book and some details regarding their publishing company, in which he states was started by him and his brothers. Were you aware of this?

    alaskabambam.blogspot.com

    It’s sad he’s such a poor writer. A product of homeschooling by Ami no doubt. It’s a shame he wasn’t given the chance to be schooled properly, not to mention his siblings.
    And I’m sure I don’t have to point out the obvious since its been a topic of major discussion since the start of the show, but I will for the benefit of any newcomers. Access to the Internet when our dear narrator tells us, as does the family, they are a recently discovered family grownup wild in the bush. Removed from mainstream society, etc.

    • Back in 2014 when the Browns were in L.A. for the TV Critics Association press tour, Bam explained how he got access to the internet:

      BAM BROWN: Well, it depends where you are as to how hard it is to get to a library. Like, when I first started working on our website, I would walk nine miles one way to get to the library from the harbor because not every harbor shack has Internet and, at that time, I didn’t have a laptop or anything like that. So I had to walk nine miles one way to get to the library. All of us, my brothers and myself, have always had a penchant for learning. We’ve always been very into, you know, learning and find out new things, and it is difficult to get that information in the bush. So we do spend a lot of time myself, I do spend a lot of time at the library, studying things, as well as Noah here, who is very into biology and chemistry and all of the things like that which you need more information to learn. But a lot of the harbor shacks as well in Alaska have book drops where you swap the books that you have for other people that people have left there.

      • Wonder if the 9 miles he walked was uphill both ways? And also wonder about which harbor he was speaking….in other words, is there a harbor in Alaska where one must then travel 9 miles to the local library? Where is Alaskan David when we need him?

      • Thanks Ryan. I read a similar interview, but different. In that particular interview Bam states when they pull into a harbor he’ll use his laptop, but if they’re not close to a cell tower he will go to the library.
        I was under the impression they were not familiar with modern technology or conveniences. Such as the iPhone, microwave oven, etc. Am I missing something? I recall an episode with a few of the boys sitting around discussing email, texting and not having a clue how each application is used.
        I guess Bam’s “Clarification” was Discovery’s spin on the situation after finding out some of them have utube channels dating back to 2008.
        I thought the same about the 9 mile walk to the library. I thought there’s an Alaskan around every corner willing to help. He couldn’t hitch a ride to and from? Was it the short dyed blonde hair or the long wild bush look that scared people from offering a ride?

        • You are not mistaken, Marcus. Someone once referred to a microwave as “this box that fries food.” They played especially dumb for the cameras back in Seasons 1 & 2.

    • I won’t speculate on claims of abuse. I’m not sure what’s motivating Les Branson and his family. Is it a sincere desire to have his mom reunite with her long-lost daughter or is it something more insidious? What, if any, involvement will Discovery have in this? There is no way this meeting is going to happen without DISC’s hands in it somehow.

  4. I’ve been traveling for a few weeks so I missed the last two “exciting” episodes. Ryan, great recaps as usual. I read the recaps before watching via On-demand. Makes the silliness more bearable. I too am getting tired of hearing over and over how the mean old state gubmit was picking on these innocents. Come on Discovery, just drop it!
    Did anybody else notice that Noah Duh-Vinci was strolling through the dump without his cane and not limping around on that seriously re-injured leg? I guess he’s still milking it when there’s physical work to be done. LMAO when dear announcer talked about how busy they’ve been with the spring rush in the fake hauling business. Also, no talk of grandbabies on the last few episodes. It’s about time for some more fake dates!

  5. This is my first time commenting here. I have to say, in all honesty, this is the highlight of my week. I record the show, wait for your recap and comments, then watch the latest episode. Believe me, it makes watching these bumbling idiots a lot more (should I dare say) enjoyable. What family, in their right mind, still have all their children living at “home” at their ages? It’s sickening and disgusting to me! For heaven’s sake, Matt is already turning gray and acts like he’s a 12 year old. All I can say is…Discovery has ran out of ideas for good viewing. Love your recap of the show and especially all the comments!!!

  6. This blows my mind.

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    June 22, 2016
    Contact:
    Memaw’s Trip to Alaska
    C/O Chuck Gilbert
    Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX
    Email: XXXXXXXXXXX
    EIGHTY-THREE YEAR-OLD DISABLED GRANDMOTHER TO MAKE 7000 MILE TRIP BEFORE SHE DIES TO SEE ESTRANGED DAUGHTER WHO IS REALITY TV STAR IN ALASKA
    Springtown, Texas Eighty-three year-old retired civil servant Earlene Branson has not seen or talked to her daughter Ami Brown in thirty-six years. Ami Brown is the television star and matriarch of the Brown family as portrayed on the popular Discovery Channel reality show, Alaskan Bush People.
    After suffering a stroke in 2012 and more recently being diagnosed in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, Earlene “Memaw” Branson has not been able to contact her daughter by phone. So she’s packing up and headed to Alaska to try to find her. Her one wish is to see her daughter before she dies, and she’s willing to travel 7000 miles round-trip from Texas to Alaska to try and make it happen. She is being escorted by her great nephew, entrepreneur Charles “Chuck” Gilbert from Denver who is also financing the trip to fulfill a birthday wish for his aging aunt.
    Chuck, Memaw and her daughter Jeana Williamson will fly out of Dallas to Juneau on June 28. From there they will take a boat to the small Tlingit fishing village of Hoonah, located on Chichagof Island in Icy Strait where the wildly popular show is filmed. While there, Memaw will try to locate her daughter to tell her she loves her.
    Chuck will be videotaping the journey and posting updates to YouTube and Facebook. Tune in to see how this heart rending story will reach its final conclusion, and see if a heartbroken mother will get to see her long lost daughter before she takes her final journey.
    https://www.facebook.com/memawstripto.alaska?fref=ts
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCljlGB89lOx7vbRT4It0u-w?app=desktop

    I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but…
    A) Is there some kind of guarantee that Ami is going to be there?
    B) What’s the purpose of the press release? A plea for Ami to show up? A sly wink wink to Discovery?
    C) There is just no way this happens without Discovery getting a piece of the action. If they’re not already behind it, they’re going to be involved in it, or it’s not going to happen.

        • Well, that certainly is an interesting Facebook site…all kinds of info. As for the “breaking” story itself, hard to know who is behind this: Ami’s mom, other family members, the ABP, Discovery—so many possibilities. But, as with everything concerning ABP, the only way to approach any story out there is with exxxxtreme (note the 4 Xs) skepticism and a well-tuned Smell-O-Meter.

        • I checked the link and feel kinda bad for ole’ Memaw. She looks like she just woke up and is still wearing her pajamas and robe.

    • Maybe great nephew “entrepreneur” Charles Gilbert wants some noteriety. No matter what, I’m watching. Maybe while playing Legos.

    • Man is it getting thick or what.Today is our last day up north in Michigan so will be fishing till 10 pm or so. Already looking forward to the next recap and now the side issues.

    • God is love,not hate,there should be forgiveness if Amy claims to be a christian,you will know by the fruit they bare,there should be closure .

  7. I’m on vacation at Black Lake Mi.Great recap as always. Disappointed in the gun shot no magic bullet theory there.

  8. I have to admit at the beginning of this episode I initially mistook the dump for brown town.

  9. The alleged bullet hole in the buoy: If a bullet made that hole, then where is the exit hole on the other side or why isn’t there a bullet rattling around in the buoy? This “evidence” would be laughed out of court.

    Bear’s daytime reconnaissance: Could that have been more ridiculous? Running at full speed through uneven terrain with a supposedly-loaded gun—stopping every few feet and looking through the scope as if to really expect to see something nefarious afoot—moronic. And, what was Bear going to do if he saw someone—shoot and ask questions later?

    Bear’s zipline: I hope he doesn’t “drop in” on Billy & Ami at some inopportune time in the night because he thought he heard strange sounds from the main house. Think about it.

    Noah’s night-vision goggles: I thought Noah had rigged up some outside lighting for Brown Town a few episodes ago—or last season. Another useless Noah Non-Project.

    Opera on the Boat: First and foremost, if the Integrity still doesn’t have running lights, then why can’t Genius Noah—or anyone for that matter—get some installed? But, going on to the Opera Alarm System—well, that might scare away intruders if they suddenly heard Pavarotti blaring out in the night. But, as with everything else Noah-built, it is unwieldy and impractical.

    Matt’s Queen of Hearts: Grow up. Brown Town is a dump and you’re playing like a 5-year-old.

    Bossman Matt & the tire fender job: Since the job supposedly got done without Bam, why the post-mortem about Bam needing to be there? It makes no sense. Just as Birdy’s comment that “Matt can only be Matt when Bam is around” makes no sense. If that is supposed to mean something, the meaning is lost on me. Can Bam only be Bam when Matt is around? Can a Brown only be a Brown when another Brown is around? What drivel!

    And where, pray tell, is Gabe’s house? I didn’t see it on the beach or in Brown Town proper. Where did it go?

    • Yeah, if Bear zip-lines to the big house unexpectedly/uninvited, he might catch Ami and Billy “carving”!

    • You don’t get it.
      Some people don’t want responsibility so when bam is there, matt can act goofy. Now that bam
      Is gone, he has to be the dad of the other kids.

      Something is wrong with Matt, not himself, guess we’ll find out soon

    • First thing I thought about too – where’s the exit hole on the buoy? Also the mysterious shooter is a pretty good shot as to see the buoy in the dark

  10. I think I have Billy Brown Syndrome (BBS). I start to watch ABP and my eyes start rolling and I slump to the couch ( not hitting the floor for these guys ) and can’t watch any further! Maybe Billy doesn’t have seizures at all but a disbelief that he got away with more bs. And he has to go into a ‘fog’ so he can deny anything he said. It’s true. I haven’t seen any ABP this year. I can’t stand the stupidness any longer. So I thank you. I can read your recaps and laugh just as hard as if I were watching. Love it.

  11. And of course we all know that billy and josh did their ankle monitor bs took place
    in April. Great editing on the part of pork slop productions.

  12. I hope the judge was watching when Billy and his son keep saying that they lied to the court in the plea deal. the judge and the prosecutor are ethically bound to try all seven of the brown clowns for stealing 20,000 dollars from the fund. A person cannot admit guilt in court, and then walk out of court and say they lied.

    • Yes, a person can admit guilt, get sentenced, serve their time, but still deny everything out in the court of public opinion. The State of Alaska made a deal with the Browns—it didn’t have to—but it did. The Browns agreed to it—they didn’t have to—but they did.

      When a person pleads guilty they are then questioned under oath about the “facts” and have to agree to certain facts about the crime (i.e. the elements of the crime) before the judge will accept the plea. In other words, whatever the elements of the crime of falsely getting PDF funds are, Billy and Bam would have had to admit to violating each element of that crime….at least that is the way it is done in my state.

      However, the continued denials of guilt by Billy and Bam do not speak to any “Integrity” on the part of the Browns—just the opposite. Further, those Browns who were charged but let Billy and Bam take the fall also demonstrate their lack of “Integrity.” They should rename their boat to “The Denial.”

      If they are so convinced of their innocence, then they should have gone to trial…but they didn’t. They made their beds and now they have to lie in them—and live with the consequences.

    • This might be a job for Lower48Lawyer? I think if a judge rejects a plea deal, it’s never entered into court record and doesn’t exist.

      • Well, that depends, Ryan. All kinds of things can be “on the record.” Do you mean the plea itself? Something that was discussed in chambers but rejected by the judge so the two sides go back to the drawing board?

        • I’m mistaken on the plea proposal being rejected. The plea deal that would’ve avoided jail time was rejected last fall. Another plea deal was accepted in January 2016. So Bam pleaded guilty, though he says on the show that he did so falsely.

          • Pleas should be on the record, along with any representation by counsel, taking an oath, admitting to the elements of the crime, etc. So, either Billy and Bam lied then when they admitted to taking the funds illegally, or they are lying now by proclaiming their innocence. Either way, they are lying. So much for their much-touted Bush integrity. But none of that changes the fact that the case is done.

  13. “Like pulling one of his mom’s teeth.” Well done, Mr. Berenz! You are wrong about Browns hauling useless boat fenders. There was probably a ferocious bidding war for them after people saw Browns trying to dock that damn Integrity. And what’s with Noah this week? All badass with the black bandana. They are all starting to look like reject bikers, even Birdie was wearing leather. I enjoyed it when Billy suggested that Noah might not be one of them, that someone might have “dropped him off.” But, yet, he’s willing to claim the rest of those nut cases? Browns are really turning into a bunch of happy do-gooders with tons of community service, I mean SPIRIT!

  14. Ryan, once again, you nailed it! I still find it hard to believe that there are people who think the Brown’s are on the up & up. I figure I’ll keep my mouth shut and won’t educate them on what the real truth is…after all, they can read all about it in the news. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. I think what both bothered me and made the Brown “kids” more real at the same time was the way they dissed Bam when they were out on their “job”. Bam may be lots of things, but IMO, he’s the only one of the bunch that tends to err on the side of caution. His siblings dissing him just proves what everybody on the planet knows to be true…not all siblings get along all of the time and it’s perfectly okay. That is the most “real” we’ve ever seen from the residents of BrownTown. It was nice not hearing Ami whine through the whole episode…Billy should’ve followed her lead. The more he opens his mouth, the more he contradicts himself. As for Matt’s boat & Noah’s foolish “inventions”…I’ve said it before…there’s far too much preparing to do on a homestead to be diddling around with all these weird Bush Necessities. How we’ve ever gotten by on our homestead without a trebuchet, a bucking bronco barrel, a swing, a bike elevator, I’ll never know. Oh, and coming to a homestead near you…A ZIPLINE! Seriously? All we can hope for now is Bear gets an EXXXXTREME case of rope burn…

    • Does that mean you DO have a bicycle generator? Many of Noah’s inventions (well, at least a few) are actual “things” – if you know what I mean. It’s sort of like he got a booklet of school science projects and is working his way through, claiming to “invent” projects as he goes. I’m just waiting for the “volcano”.

      Too bad he hasn’t found something like http://www.motherearthnews.com to try to copy USEFUL projects. Way back when Matt was in the dump looking for something to use with his root cellar I was telling the TV “look at all those refrigerators” thinking of something like http://www.offthegridnews.com/how-to-2/how-to-convert-an-old-useless-refrigerator-into-a-root-cellar/ Whatever happened with that root cellar. It was the perfect size for all the food their garden produces.

      • The root cellar is where Kenny from the junkyard is buried. The Good Lord rest his soul.

        But if you believe Discovery Channel’s dog and pony show, Matt simply gave up on building the root cellar. “In my head, some things don’t work the same as in reality,” Matt said. “Like gravity, for instance.”

      • No, SRTouch…we don’t have anything like that on our ‘stead! We “get by” with a real generator (should we need it) and other fun stuff like a chainsaw, log splitter and various hand tools (nothing like the wrench/hatchet, though!). Useful stuff that keeps us here instead of at the local motel (which isn’t as local as the Brown’s are afforded).

  15. I love this show after all t.v is entertainment I think it’s great and I look forward to watching them with all the other bullshit in the world leave them alone its a t.v show

    • Kind of like a cross between the beverly hill billy’s and gilligan’s island, set in
      soggy SE Alaska.

      • Maybe after their Juneau vacation while the crew will get around to making the boardwalk Billy said they needed at the beginning of the season.

    • Hello Susie! Let me be the first to welcome you. And big bush welcome to you! You’ll have to pardon my friends here. I’m sure they’re glad just as much as I, that you’ve joined our little discussion group. But many are suffering from bush burnout, after watching this train wreck and fraudsters run around the “Deep Bush”, many seasons like a bunch of 6 year olds that were recently discovered wild, after living 30 years in the lower 48, I mean bush, or some kind of bull like that.
      I’m sure you’ll gain a lot of useful knowledge from the many that have done their homework so diligently that will show you how fake this really is. From Ryan’s hilarious recaps to David’s insight as a true Alaskan.
      So once again, welcome Dadgumit. I’m sure you’ll have an awesome and exxxxtreme time.

Comments are closed.

About Ryan Berenz 2166 Articles
Member of the Television Critics Association. Charter member of the Ancient and Mystic Society of No Homers. Squire of the Ancient & Benevolent Order of the Lynx, Lodge 49, Long Beach, Calif. Costco Wholesale Gold Star Member since 2011.